Smart Ones Anytime Mini Cheeseburgers

Smart Ones makes a rather bold claim in assuming that you can eat their Anytime selection any time of day. Oh, can I, Smart Ones? Now that I have your permission? Coming from someone who has been known to eat Easy Mac in the wee hours o’ the morn with chopsticks to boot, I don’t feel any more liberated knowing that I’m allowed to snarf down one slider any time I please.Along with the Mini Cheeseburgers, Smart Ones seems to be on a trend of “bar snacks for infants,” also offering mini quesadillas, mini non-stoner bagel bites, and mini taquitos to round them off. The mini burgers are easy to prepare and boast a fair amount of cheese. Thirteen words to basically yap about a very simple concept: tiny Frankenstein burgers with TVP and a strangely delicious bun. The bun is the best part about this slider, actually, with a floury, dense texture and buttery flavor. I don’t know how the bun alone isn’t the 200 calories in each ‘wich, but I do know that don’t want to eat it as much as I want to stick googly eyes on the little sucker, film a short comedy series, and adopt it as my own. It’s that twee.Unfortunately, it didn’t really blow me away. If anything, this was the equivalent of a lazy backseat handjob. This was like the latter-day excitement I’d normally reserve for a used salad shaker. While I don’t expect the same level of expertise in frozen foods than say, at wd-50, I do expect a modicum of congruity and tastiness. This was just insulting. For 200 calories, I was able to eat one of these dense, salty little suckers, which, despite having a fair amount of slick, weak-flavored cheese, contained a pungent and soft, yet tough burger patty the size of a commemorative coin. This was no slider. I couldn’t lie to myself.

What’s worse is that I made a meal out of this with some oven fries and one burger, coming out to 500 calories. 500 calories nets me four White Castle hamburgers, a far more filling and well-prepared food, even if out of the freezer. Not to mention that White Castle sells their frozen counterparts in six packs for around $2.50. I picked up this package of two Smart Ones sliders for a little over $3. At $1.60ish a slider, that’s like comedy club prices and I didn’t even get a commemorative shot glass to show for it. So Smart Ones, you can suck it. I’ve had enough of this baby bar food tomfoolery and will stick to my regular favorites.